Teaching Team

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Mahmoud Al-Batal is a Professor at AUB's Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages and Director of the CAMES summer Arabic program. Prior to joining AUB, he was Professor of Arabic at the University of Texas, Austin. He has directed a number of Arabic programs in the US including the Arabic Flagship program at the University of Texas; the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) with its programs in Cairo, Damascus, and Amman; the School of Arabic at Middlebury College; and the Emory University Arabic program. Professor Al-Batal holds a B.A. in Arabic Language and Literature from the Lebanese University in Beirut, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Arabic Linguistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is coauthor of al-Kitaab Arabic textbook series and has conducted numerous teacher training workshops in the US and the Arab world.

Salwa Wardeh Madbak is currently an Arabic teacher for elementary students at the American Community School in Beirut, where she has worked since 2007. She holds a Bachelor's degree from the Universite Saint Joseph in Beirut and an MA in Education and International Teaching from Framingham State University in Massachusetts. She joined the CAMES summer Arabic program team in 2012 and has been teaching here during the summers since. In 2016, she presented a workshop in at the Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools (NESA) conference in Bangkok about reading and writing in Arabic classes.

Ghada Bualuan is a Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Program of Arabic and Middle Eastern studies in the Department of Classics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she teaches Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced Arabic language courses and fourth year Arabic content courses, in addition to an Arabic literature, culture and civilization course (in translation). She holds an M.A. in Arabic Language and Literature from Middlebury College. In 2016, she was awarded a Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Her first textbook, Stories from Thousand and One Nights, was published by Routledge in 2018. Her current work includes the translation of her Arabic novel A Sky Full of Stars (2015) into English.

Hadi Aridi currently works as an Events Planner and Coordinator at the American University of Beirut while completing his MA degree in Sociology, also at AUB. He holds a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from AUB and has worked widely in the fields of public relations, communications and events planning as a communications consultant, as well as teaching Arabic and English at various levels. He joined the CAMES summer Arabic program as a Lebanese Arabic instructor in 2013 and served as the coordinator of all Cultural Activities in the 2017 program.

Rawad Wehbe is a PhD student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles and his MA from the University of Texas at Austin in Arabic with a concentration in literature and culture. Since 2013, he has taught Arabic at several universities and institutes at various levels; this is his second year teaching at CAMES. He reads Arabic literature across periodization, genre, and tradition; he dedicates his research to poetry and fiction, literary theory, translation theory and practice, and teaching Arabic as a foreign language.

Youmna Chami is currently an instructor of Arabic for non-native speakers at the American University of Beirut. She earned a Master of Arts in Teaching Literature Degree and New York State Secondary Teaching Certificate in English from Bard College, New York in 2009, and is also a certified tester of Arabic with the American Council on The Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Before joining AUB, Youmna was a Lecturer in Arabic Language and Linguistics in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University - NY. She is a co-author of Arabiyyat al Naas part III (London Routledge, 2014).

Safaa Ibrahim is an instructor of Arabic at the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages and at the Center of Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Arabic Literature from the Lebanese University and a Master's degree in Arabic Literature from AUB. She holds another Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering and worked for few years in the field of engineering before joining AUB. She has been an instructor in the CAMES Summer program since 2015 and has taught various levels of Arabic as a Foreign Language over the past few years.

Nadine Sinno is an assistant professor of Arabic and director of the Arabic program in the department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Arkansas and has been teaching Arabic to non-natives speakers since 2001. She is a co-author of Haki bil-Libnani: Lebanese Arabic Online Textbook and Companion Website to Al-kitaab Part One (2014). Her research interests include modern Arabic literature and cultural studies, gender and sexuality, and visual culture. Her work has appeared in The Journal of Arabic Literature, The Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, MELUS, and Middle Eastern Literatures. Her publications include a translation of Nazik Saba Yared's novel Canceled Memories(2009) and a co-translation of Rashid al-Daif's novel Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep? (2014) to English.

Mohammad Fakhreddine is a PhD candidate in Arabic Literature at Georgetown University in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. He earned his BA and MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. His Master's Thesis focused on Modern Arabic Poetry, more specifically the stylistic and technical innovations of the Free Verse Movement in the 20th century. Mohammad's areas of interest include Classical and Modern Arabic poetry, poetic stylistics and metrics, and Arabic language and identity. He joined the CAMES summer Arabic program in 2017 as a tutor.

Ali Rida K. Rizek is a PhD candidate at “Seminar für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft", Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. He is currently working on the early developments of Imāmī legal thinking. His research focuses on the development of Islamic schools of thought, with particular concern in its social and political context. Other fields of interests include: early Islamic Historiography, Arabic Lexicography, Jāhilī and early Umayyad poetry, Sufism and Theosophism (ʿirfān), and the reception of Ancient Greek Philosophy in the Arabo-Islamic culture. He has taught in the CAMES summer Arabic program since 2009.

Samia Al Tall is currently an instructor of Arabic for foreigners at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo's department of Medieval and Modern Arabic Studies). At the same time, she is working on her Masters of Arts degree in Arabic Language and Literature at the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern languages at AUB. She joined the Cames summer Arabic program in 2015 where she has taught Arabic Language and Lebanese Colloquial for the advanced levels.

Zaynab Dia holds a BA in Translation and Languages from the Islamic University of Lebanon, and an MA in Arabic as Foreign and Applied Language from the Lebanese University's Center for Languages and Translation. She has taught English to students with learning disabilities in a number of Lebanese schools, and has also taught Arabic for foreigners. She currently works as a freelance translator, copywriter and editor for a number of translation offices and advertising agencies all around Lebanon. She joined the CAMES summer Arabic program in 2017.

Ziad Eldanaf is currently a Masters student in the department of Philosophy at the American University of Beirut. He completed his BA in Philosophy from the same university in 2017 with a minor in Arabic Language and Literature. He joined CAMES team as a teaching assistant in the summer of 2017, and is currently an instructor. His research interests range from Metaphysics, Ancient Philosophy and Philosophy of Science to Arab thought, Sufism and Islamic Philosophy. Besides his academic life, Ziad engages in personal research on contemporary science especially astronomy, and is an Instructor at the Cosmic Dome Planetarium.

Caline Saad is currently writing her PhD Thesis in Philosophy: Diplomatic Linguistics. She has been teaching languages as a direct application of her own studies in Philosophy of Education. Her main concern is using critical thinking in language classes and focusing on the political impact of language teaching in conflict zones. Her studies accompany her work in INGOs. Caline is an Education Coordinator overseeing a Learning Center for refugees in the Metn area where she conducts workshops in Methodology, Critical Thinking, and Philosophical Inquiry in Language Teaching. Her main experience is in Education Management, and teaching Philosophy and languages to children, adolescents and adults. She taught in the CAMES Arabic program in 2015 and 2016.

Carla El Khoury graduated from the Center for Languages and Translation at the Lebanese University with a Master's in TALF (Teaching Arabic as a foreign language). Since 2014, she has been working as an Arabic Teacher and Assistant Coordinator of the Arabic department (Grades 7, 8 & 9) at Saint Joseph School Cornet Chahwan, and as an Arabic teacher at the Technical Institute of Ajaltoun. She teaches courses in Arabic as a foreign language and also Arabic courses for native speakers. She joined the CAMES summer Arabic program as an instructor in 2017.

Tania Georgi is currently an Arabic and French instructor and a publishing editor. She started her career as a translator and conference interpreter in six languages, then became a certified tester in French and Arabic for the French Ministry of Education. She later worked as a communication project manager, before starting teaching AFL and French literature in 2008. She holds a Teaching Diploma in FFL, a BA in French Literature, and a Master in Applied Foreign Languages from Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, France. She joined the CAMES summer Arabic program as an instructor for the intermediate levels in 2015 and 2017.

Fatima Zaraket recently graduated from the American University of Beirut with an MA in Linguistics. She has co-translated two scholarly books from English into Arabic, originally entitled Islamic Ecumenism in the 21st Century by R. Brunner as well as Knowledge and the Sacred by H. Nasr. Fatima has also translated into Arabic scholarly papers published in prominent journals in the Arabic-speaking world in the fields of Islamic philosophy, Qurʾānic Studies, and Anthropology. She is interested in tracing how identity manifestations in the life writings of Arab women writers speak of, and equally unpack, the structures of power as they creatively engage in meaning making and negotiating discourses. Her research interests include: translation theory and practice, rhetorical theory, Arabic sociolinguistics and philology.